I would be interested to know if anyone had a family member in the British 8th Army during W.W.2. My Father's name was Albert (Jock) Forbes, from Dundee, Scotland, and was in North Africa and Italy. I would appreciate "any" information. Sincerely, Annie Fairchild (Forbes) Canada

At 20:20 22/07/01 -0400, Bruce Fairchild wrote: >I would be interested to know if anyone had a family member in the >British 8th Army during W.W.2. > >My Father's name was Albert (Jock) Forbes, from Dundee, Scotland, and >was in North Africa and Italy. >I would appreciate "any" information. > > Sincerely, Annie Fairchild (Forbes) Canada Annie, The Eighth Army was an extremely large formation consisting of a number of Corps and specialist formations referred to as Army Troops. Each of those corps consisted of a number of divisions. A division was made up of a number of brigades and units acting as divisional troops. An armoured brigade consisted of three or four armoured units plus support units; an infantry brigade contained three or four infantry battalions and support units. A battalion was some 600 to 700 men strong. During its operational history between September 1941in Egypt and 2 May 1945 in northern Italy, the organisation of the Eighth Army changed considerably at Allied formations were added and withdrawn to meet different operational needs. So, your Father will have had many British, Australian, New Zealand, Indian and Polish comrades over those years. It would be easier to identify old comrades if you could clarify what unit he served in. I am emailing you a short history of the Eighth Army that may help. Yours aye, Iain Kerr in Windsor, Berkshire Web Page at: http://home.clara.net/iainkerr/index.htm RootsWeb Sponsor and Listowner for the KERR; McTURK and SOUTHON lists and the WORLDWAR2 List. Maintainer of the Ayrshire Surnames Index Database at: http://home.clara.net/iainkerr/genuki/AYR/SID/indexsid.htm Maintainer of the GENUKI Ayrshire pages at: http://home.clara.net/iainkerr/genuki/AYR/index.htm